Quilt for an Artist Son

Oldest Daughter didn't receive her college quilt until the fall of her sophomore year, Active Son received his quilt after completing his first semester, but I somehow managed to finish making Artist Son's quilt so that he could take it with him to college. It was still down to the wire, though: I finished the machine quilting just in time to take the quilt with us to a family reunion in Montana, where I completed hand-sewing the binding. My goal had been to bring the finished quilt with us from Jordan when we traveled to the US in May, but that goal was much too lofty for me to attain. I did manage to bring back the pieced quilt top--at least it was easy to pack!

 Plain Spoken, designed by Bill Kerr

The Modern Quilt Workshop

My third quilt made from recycled clothing  was constructed using pieces from 25 men's 100% cotton shirts that I purchased from the used clothing souq in Amman (Souq Jumma'). Artist Son chose the design and approved my color scheme. I'm still keeping it simple as I am precision-challenged and have a hard time getting my lines straight and my points lined up. So as not to emphasize my wiggly waggly seams, I decided to machine quilt using diagonal lines which would cut across rather than follow seam lines. I used approximately 3 inch wide masking tape as my stitching guide.

The multi-color binding was made from scraps of the same fabrics.

I forgot to take a picture of the back, but the quilt is backed with chocolate brown minky fabric, just like Active Son's, and I did the machine quilting with the same shade of brown thread.

I think it is the perfect quilt for an artist son. It certainly brightens up his dorm room! I hope that he is cheered by is colors and kept warm by its bulk on grey winter days.

One the most satisfying aspects of finishing a quilt is shifting my mind to begin thinking about the next quilt. I have some ideas but need to do some shirt, I mean fabric, shopping first. Meanwhile, I'm trying to finish up a scrappy wool throw that I began last spring in yet another over-optimistic burst of creative energy. It's been too hot around here to even think about wool, but it is finally cooling off (low-mid 80's) so maybe I'll be able to finish it up this week. Or next.